It is known to provide the disposable diaper with pressure-sensitive adhesive tape servieng to connect, at the waist level, front and rear areas of the diaper at laterally opposite side ends. In fact, there have already been available from many manufacturers the diapers utilizing such adhesive tape as so easily found in Patent Gazettes or the like that it appears unnecessary to quote these prior arts.
However, such adhesive tape of well known art functions merely to connect said front and rear areas of the diaper at the waist level and at laterally opposite side ends. More specifically, such well known adhesive tape is used for fastening the respective side ends of said rear area in overlapping state with respect to the corresponding side ends of said front area of the diaper when put on the user. Accordingly, this adhesive tape is made of well known material having a relatively high rigidity such as paper-based material and formed in a relative small length sufficient for said fastening function.
With the diaper provided with such adhesive tape, the front and rear areas must be overlapped to each other at opposite side margins in said front and rear areas at the waist level when put on the user. However, these mutually overlapping side margins are considered to have no direct contribution to the diaper's primary function of holding excrements and absorbing liquid ingredients thereof, so that the diaper should be oversized by a dimension corresponding to said overlapping side margins. This should lead to a correspondingly increased material to be used for each diaper and, therefore, to an increased cost. Said overlapping side margins further may cause a bulkiness at opposite sides of the user's waist and may obstruct a free movement of the user.
In the diaper equipped with adhesive tape of well known art as mentioned above, there is separately provided release tape serving to protect the effective surface of said adhesive tape and adapted to be fixed to a surface of the diaper or to be provisionarily attached to said effective surface of said adhesive tape, when said adhesive tape is not used. However, provision of such release tape, in addition to said adhesive tape, correspondingly increases as well the diaper's cost.
Neverthless, the prior art concerning the disposable diaper teaches or suggests no measure to eliminate the inconveniences as has been described above.